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Casting ©ut Jfear 


BY THE SAME AUTHOR 


THE COW AND MILK BOOK 
PATRIOTISM AND PLENTY 
BREAD AND FANCY BREADS 
SOUP, OYSTERS AND SURPRISES 

NEW YORK: JOHN LANE COMPANY 
LONDON: JOHN LANE, THE BODLEY HEAD 






Copyright, iqi8, 

By JOHN LANE COMPANY 




SEP 15 1918 . 

. *x % 


Contents 


CHAPTER PAGE 

I. THE PARALYSIS OF FEAR 9 

II. FEAR OF HEREDITY 13 

III. PRE-NATAL FEAR 17 

IV. EDUCATING CHILDREN IN FEAR ... 20 

V. FEAR OF THE ELEMENTS 24 

VI. FEAR OF ILLNESS 28 

VII. FEAR OF INSANITY 34 

VIII. FEAR OF SLEEP 40 

IX. FEAR OF POVERTY 44 

X. FEAR OF PUBLIC OPINION 48 

XI. FEARS THAT GO WITH WEALTH AND 

WORLDLY POSITION 51 

XII. FEAR OF SERVANTS 55 

XIII. FEAR OF ENEMIES 60 

XIV. FEAR OF WAR 62 

XV. FEAR OF PEACE 64 

XVI. FEAR OF RIDICULE 67 

XVII. FEAR OF RESPONSIBILITY 69 

XVIII. FEAR OF CONSEQUENCES 71 

XIX. FEAR OF FAILURE 73 

XX. FEAR OF ONE’S OWN THOUGHTS ... 76 

XXI. FEAR OF TRUTH 81 

XXII. FEAR OF OLD AGE 85 

XXIII. FEAR OF DEATH 89 

5 



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' 







Casting: #ut Jfear 






(Tasting out jfear 


I — Cfte paralpsfe of JFear 


We can talk as we like, do as we like, but our 
only real power lies in what we are. 

We become what we love. What we love we 
think about, and our thoughts are carved on 
our faces as firmly as on granite. 

These thoughts are not only seen, but felt. 
They are live things, and radiate a current of 
good or evil, a positive or negative force. 

When fear predominates, the current is nega- 
tive. There is no strength in fear. 

Fear is a canker of rapid and dangerous 
growth. The liar, the coward, the harlot, the 
lunatic, are all the results of the paralysis of 
fear. 

Nearly everyone is gripped by some fear or 
another. 

The fear of missing pleasure is responsible 
for most of the misery in the world. 

9 


io Casting out JFear 


The man becomes immoral through fear of 
ridicule, or the fear of someone doubting his 
manhood. Nine times out of ten the girl goes 
wrong because she is afraid of losing her lover. 

The woman goes in fear down to the grave 
to bring her child into the world. 

The child screams in fear of life, and in 
fear of not being fed, in fear of sleep. It never 
walks alone until it casts out the fear of falling 
down. 

The fear of illness keeps three-quarters of 
the world sick, or slaves to drugs that leave 
the soul torpid and the body only half alive. 

The fear of insanity drives many people into 
becoming crazy. 

Fear of poverty makes the miser, who is one 
of the poorest creatures of the earth. 

Fear of showing our feelings is responsible 
for much misunderstanding, and keeps us from 
being ourselves, in which lies a certain power, 
however poor a thing we are. 

We have most of us put money in the plate 
at church because we were afraid not to, and 
we subscribe to many wastefully managed and 
unnecessary charities for the same reason. 

Society is largely composed of people who are 


Cfte paralgsfe of jFear n 


afraid to stay at home in case other people 
should think they were never asked out, or for 
fear of their own thoughts. Hence so many 
bores. 

The social climber never says an unkind word 
about anybody. He is afraid to. This nega- 
tive kindness has no warmth. 

The small soul whose body has crawled into 
a high place lives in terror of not appearing im- 
portant. He surrounds himself with every ex- 
ternal support of dignity and strews the world 
with portraits, statues and watering-troughs for 
fear he should be forgotten. The world is full 
of this negative philanthropy. 

What thousands of women make themselves 
ridiculous from fear of advancing age ! 

The fear of death poisons the joy of life. 

Now fear can always be cast out, because a 
negative force can always be replaced by a posi- 
tive one. Everything in nature, everything in 
life, goes in pairs; beauty and ugliness, strength 
and weakness, love and hate. 

Fear, which is negative, can be dispelled by 
the positive powers of hope, of faith, of under- 
standing, and above all of love. 

“Perfect love casteth out all fear.” Love is 


i2 Casting out JFear 


the supreme power, because God is Love. 

The man who has conquered fear by what- 
ever means, radiates strength, and we feel his 
power whether we want to or not, because it is 
vital and immortal. 

The man who has conquered fear by love, 
himself radiates love. He has no need to preach 
or to condemn. He is instinctively merciful. 
Everyone is happier and better for knowing 
him. 

If we all loved our neighbours as ourselves, 
sin would disappear. 

In casting out fear we are born again. We 
are free. 

I hear someone say: “Sorrow must come to 
us.” Yes, sorrow must come; but let us face it, 
and remember it is all sent to us through Divine 
Love. When we cast out fear, sorrow enables 
us to touch God’s Hand. 


ii. — Jfeat of ^ereDitg 


It is easy enough to sit down and say, “Yes, 
I acknowledge I am lazy. It’s bred in the bone ; 
we’re all lazy.” 

“My father was a gambler; so how can you 
expect anything else of me?” 

“My mother drinks. It’s in the blood. I 
suppose my children will drink too.” 

“We are very proud of our ancestors; but 
the fact remains, that none of them had any 
morals; and what can I expect of my children 
when I couldn’t control myself?” 

“My great-grandfather had a talent for for- 
gery, and if some big temptation came my way, 
I expect I should try it too.” 

“My great-aunt died of consumption. I’m 
afraid that’ll be my end.” 

“My uncle committed suicide. Sometimes, 
on foggy days, I’m afraid to be left alone with 
a pair of scissors.” 

It is to me a very curious thing how people 
will accept and yield so complacently to the bad 
13 


i4 Casting out jFeac 


tendencies they inherit, instead of dwelling on 
the good. 

Everyone has four grandparents, eight great- 
grandparents and sixteen great-great-grandpar- 
ents. Why select the chief rascal of the lot, 
even if he is the one of whom we know most, 
as the only one transmitting some influence to 
govern our lives? 

And even if some physical, mental or moral 
weakness really is ours by inheritance there is 
no need to yield to it. 

Everything in life is given to us in pairs, and 
close beside the impulse to yield there is also the 
power to resist. 

Refuse to be gripped by the fear of your in- 
heritance. Face it boldly and cast it out. If it 
is true that the rankest weeds grow in the rich- 
est soil, it is also true that the finest flowers will 
grow there too; but not without planting and 
cultivation. 

We know that the spirit is stronger than 
the body, and that finite power is as nothing 
matched against infinite power, and nothing we 
can inherit from any human being can possibly 
be stronger than what we inherit from God. 
We are made in His image, and our faith in 


ifeat of J£>ereOftg 15 


Him gives us our faith in ourselves to over- 
come the accumulating sins of past generations 
and to create a strength for those that are to 
follow us. 

How often we hear it said as an excuse for 
some indulgence : “It won’t matter a hundred 
years hence.” 

Yet we believe that it does matter what our 
great-grandparents did and thought a hundred 
years ago. The principle of heredity works 
continuously; into the future as well as from 
the past, and the idea that nothing will matter 
a hundred years hence is destructive. Thoughts 
are immortal and do matter, for they go on 
into future generations. 

By resisting the temptations that beset us, 
we can strengthen those who are still unborn. 
A vital and constructive thought current is 
eternal and will help not only our own de- 
scendants, but the world at large. 

If everyone had more love in their hearts 
towards their fellow-creatures, and really 
wished to make it easier for those who come 
after us to be good, heredity would soon cease 
to be a bogey. 

In the meantime, let us fight our inheritance 


1 6 Casting out jFear 


of evil and magnify our inheritance of good, 
not only for our own sakes, but for the sake of 
the unborn. 

Just as the fights of the Hittites and the 
Amorites, of which we read in the Bible, went 
on from one generation to another, so we must 
continue to fight before we can have a real 
and lasting peace. We can save the future gen- 
erations by the power of our love. 

On our island in Canada, a nest one spring 
was built in the rain-water gutter that ran 
along the verandah roof. When the nestlings 
were nearly fledged, there came a great storm 
of thunder and lightning, with floods of rain. 
From my bed-room window I watched the 
mother bird stretch her frail wings as far as 
they would go. She strained every nerve to 
keep her new family safe and dry. Her head 
began to droop, but her wings remained firm. 
By and by, the rain ceased and the sun sud- 
denly shone out. The mother bird was dead, 
but her family was safe and dry. 


in.— prenatal jfeat 


The greatest plea for morality is that a child 
born in fear cannot be given a fair start in life; 
that passion without the sacredness of love 
brings an imperfect soul into the world — a soul 
with a pre-natal handicap. 

Now when a man pursues a woman instead 
of protecting her, it is because he is filled with 
the fear of not getting enough pleasure out of 
life; and in this fear he kills not only his own 
moral sense and his self-respect, but the thing 
he loves best, which is his ideal of the woman. 

This is equally true and even worse of the 
woman who pursues a man. But sentiment is 
only inspired by an ideal, and, curiously, the 
woman who is not able to hold a man’s imagina- 
tion will not hold his passions for long. 

Passion destroys: love protects and creates. 
Love and faith are immortal qualities, and our 
link with the divine, and it is only when they 
are present in the relations between a man and 


1 8 Casting out jFear 


a woman that the highest type of mankind can 
be born. 

No matter what we do for our children in 
life, we owe them an equal debt before they 
are born, a birthright of a clean soul and body, 
with love and happiness as a welcome into the 
world. 

All of life that is worth living is in what 
we give, not what we get, and one of the 
greatest things we can give to the world, if 
given in a right spirit, is a human soul, not 
just a human body. It comes to us as a loan : 
it is born for a purpose, begotten through ma- 
terial joy, sanctified by spiritual love. 

The woman who goes down to the grave to 
meet her newborn babe, goes only too often 
in terror where she should go in joy, casting 
out all fear, in the glory of love and the desire 
of giving a life to the world, not of taking a 
child for herself. Let us never forget that 
when motherhood is looked upon with terror, 
the child has a hard start in life, for it is not 
given spiritual freedom, and is therefore not 
thoroughly alive. 

Cast out all fear of the coming child not 
being a boy, or not being a girl. Cast out all 


lj9te*H3atal JFeat 19 


fear of not being able to support it. Love is 
born with each child, and love will find out a 
way. If you love it enough and have faith, 
you will be able to support it. Love is ability. 
God does not give with one hand to take away 
with the other, and fatherhood and mother- 
hood are among His richest gifts. 


iv.— OEDucatmg CJnlOren in JFeat 


In looking back over the early education of 
many of our friends, how many of us will re- 
call statements such as the following: 

“The bogies will catch you if you aren’t 
good.” 

“What will other little boys think if you do 
so and so?” 

“Take care: the dog will bite you.” 

“Look out, or the horse will kick you.” 

“You’ll get sunstroke if you play without a 
hat.” 

“I once knew a little boy who wiped his 
nose on his sleeve, and the devil gobbled him 
up.” 

“If you kiss your mother, other boys will 
laugh at you.” 

“If you speak too nicely to the servants, they 
will think you’re not a lady.” 

“If you cry, everybody will laugh at you.” 

That is to say, that in the average training 
of young children, appeal is made, not to their 


20 


©Ducatmg CjnlOren in JFear 21 


love and trustfulness, but to their fear. What- 
ever they do they are taught to do through fear 
of something else, not from any higher motive, 
or from following a big ideal. 

This is especially true of the children of the 
rich, a large proportion of whom are always 
pursued by a nurse, herself in fear of some- 
thing happening to them, or trying to save her- 
self trouble. The result is that an average 
rich child of twelve years old is years behind 
the poor child of the same age, in the develop- 
ment of self-reliance and those qualities that 
make for good citizenship. Yet when it comes 
to a question of management, the child that is 
never lied to is seldom disobedient. If we tell 
the child what we mean, he responds in truth 
to us. 

We have seen how a mother’s fear will 
handicap her unborn child. Is it not equally 
wrong to educate it in the fear we have our- 
selves? 

The pinched bodies and souls of millions of 
children in the world to-day are the result of 
this education in fear, which can only be coun- 
teracted by the positive education of love and 
understanding. 


22 Casting out JFeac 


The horse kicks because he is afraid of the 
child, but danger ceases as soon as mutual love 
and understanding are established between 
them, and the same is true of the dog. 

Thousands of children are almost grown 
up before they realise that the sun has any 
other function than that of causing sunstroke, 
or the wind than that of giving colds. In fact, 
the fear of the elements and the fear of ridi- 
cule are among the commonest fears there are. 

Fear of ridicule is ingrained in millions of 
people and makes them always vulnerable. 
They dare not face it. They will sacrifice their 
friends, their ambitions, their ideals, if threat- 
ened with ridicule. A grown man will often 
fear being laughed at by someone to whose 
opinion on any other subject he would not pay 
the slightest attention. 

How criminal it is, therefore, to foster such 
a fear in children! Teach them to be impervi- 
ous to ridicule. 

A boy who can stand ridicule becomes a 
leader of men, and has the world in his hand. 

“Tell me what he laughs at, and I’ll tell you 
what sort of man he is.” 

The man is what he loves, never what he 


(Educating Cfrildren in jFear 23 


fears; for love is life and a positive force. 
Fear is negative and can be dispelled or con- 
quered. 

There is a Greek allegory that tells us how 
someone went to Love, who lived in a radiant 
castle, and complained that he should allow 
such a monster as Fear to dwell so nearly op- 
posite. But Love, who had never seen Fear, 
could not believe it, so he suffered himself to 
be led out and shown the house where Fear 
dwelt. 

Love searched the house in vain, and, coming 
out, said: 

“You see you are wrong. Where Love en- 
ters, there is no such thing as Fear.” 


v.— jfeat of tftc Clements 


No wonder children are frightened of the 
water. 

Their first associations with it are generally 
of baths either too hot or too cold, soap in 
their eyes, and of being spanked for getting 
their feet wet, while a little later they are 
taught to swim by some fool who tells them 
that if they do not do this or that, they will 
drown. 

It does not seem to occur to the grown-up 
to stimulate a child’s interest in the water by 
telling it of all the things that live in it and its 
endless uses. These things are only taught 
after the child has been gripped with the fear 
of it. 

Yet the child that learns to play with water 
and in it from its babyhood, with the sponge 
or the paper boat in its bath, or with the boat 
it sails on the Round Pond, is seldom fright- 
ened when it starts to swim. Understanding 
and love have cast out fear. 


24 


Jfear of tbe Clements 25 


Yet water, like fire, is an element that needs 
understanding, and is dangerous if not under- 
stood — and one of the first steps to that under- 
standing may be taken by thinking of the ele- 
ments as linking us up with the universe be- 
yond. 

Fire will burn you, but it has other uses, 
and comes originally from the sun. The sun 
may give you sunstroke, but it kills germs and 
makes the food and flowers grow. A cold 
wind may give you a cold if you are insuffi- 
ciently protected against it, but it shakes the 
sap in the trees, and blows away the fog. 
Water may drown you, but the rain comes 
from the sky, and without it we should all soon 
die of drought. 

Then as to the earth. 

The child’s instinct is to love the earth, and 
it wants to play with it and in it, until it is 
taught the fear of being dirty. 

Lilies as well as weeds grow out of manure, 
and every real thing can produce something 
beautiful. Why should we be afraid of these 
things ? 

Remember that sun and water and air, as 
well as ourselves, are part of the great whole, 


26 Casting out Jfeat 


and are just as necessary to our souls as to our # 
bodies, as necessary as our bones, skin and 
lungs. 

This is the underlying truth in the old idea 
that we were all composed of the elements of 
earth, air, fire and water in varying propor- 
tions, our temperaments being governed by 
whatever element predominated. 

Instead of fearing the elements, let us learn 
to understand them and to use them as they are 
meant to be used. 

Instead of fearing water because we think 
it contains germs, or will make us fat, or drown 
us, let us remember that water is the most 
wonderful tonic in the world. Four glasses of 
cold running water from a tap or a spring, 
drunk slowly one after the other, will cure 
nearly every sort of headache there is. Just 
try it. Do not drink in fear, but in faith. 

Water relaxes our nerves, brightens our eyes 
and skin, and washes our insides. 

And as to drowning, it is fear that makes us 
sink. A horse, a cow or a dog can all swim 
instinctively, because they have not learnt to 
fear water, and cattle, having once swum to 


jFeat of tfte (Element 27 


save themselves, will swim again for pleasure, 
if they get a chance. 

Let us understand that fresh air in our rooms 
is not only for the good of our bodies, but has 
a wholesome effect on our minds. Anyone who 
will stand by an open window and draw in 
slowly through the nostrils twelve long deep 
breaths night and morning, thinking with each 
breath of some good and helpful thing, will 
find the treatment often quite as beneficial as if 
not more so than a beauty doctor. No one is 
too poor to do this. 

One of the advantages of living in an attic 
is that we can look at the sky without any ob- 
structions, and drink from it God’s great gift 
of fresh air with thanksgiving for every breath. 
To do this is to inhale something from the in- 
finite. 


VI.— jFear of Sllness 


I once knew a woman in America who always 
changed her street car three times in going 
two miles, so as to run less danger of catching 
a contagious disease. 

Another fear-gripped acquaintance, in Na- 
ples, burnt a sulphur candle in every cab she 
took, until the cabbies recognised her and all 
refused to take her. On being asked the reason 
for his refusal, an old driver looked at her pity- 
ingly and said: 

“You probably don’t know, Signora, how 
terribly you smell! Nobody will use the cab 
after you. They just open the door, screw up 
their noses, and send me away.” 

Then there are hundreds of people who will 
not take a house unless it is within a stone’s 
throw of the brass plate on a doctor’s door. 
They will pay a doctor just to tell them to go 
to bed, or not to eat so much ; to get more sleep, 
or more fresh air and exercise. It seems a pity 


jFear of 3ilne00 29 


that they have not sense enough to know when 
and how to do all this for themselves. 

Nobody has a greater admiration and re- 
spect for the medical profession than I have, 
but like every other profession, abuses some- 
times creep in, and a certain class of doctor 
flourishes by instilling fear into his patients and 
keeping them mentally tethered. 

A doctor, if he is to be a good one, must 
understand human nature as well as his own 
science of medicine, and above all he must 
have faith in his own ability. He must create 
a mental current that carries to the patient 
helpful thoughts of recovery. 

The doctor who says : “I give you just three 
months to live,” and then boasts that he told 
his patient accurately, ought to buy a partner- 
ship in an undertaker’s business. 

Millions of people never think for them- 
selves. They just think what they are told to 
think, and more or less by “doctor’s orders” 
obediently live or die, or accept any disease 
without a kick. 

Other doctors, however, so rarely give up 
hope that they put life into their patients by 
the very power of their faith, and to have this 


30 Casting out jfear 


power it is not necessary even to qualify as a 
doctor. 

We are all better when we are with the 
people who believe us good; we are all cleverer 
with the people who believe us clever. We 
are all healthier with the people who believe 
us healthy; and even when ill and suffering, if 
those around us would only think of us in our 
perfect state, instead of letting their minds 
dwell on us in our imperfect state, we should 
suffer less and feel stronger. 

Fear of illness keeps innumerable people 
from feeling well, and between fear and drugs 
and tonics and pick-me-ups, the hospitals and 
asylums and graveyards are overcrowded. 

Now, someone may object that a bad lung, 
heart or kidney, a constant fever, a broken leg, 
earache or toothache, cannot be denied. That 
is quite true. 

Pain cannot be denied, but it can be ex- 
aggerated. There are plenty of people who 
enjoy bad health, and love to talk and think 
about it. It seems to add to their importance. 
There are many rich women who send for a 
doctor because they cannot get any unpaid man 
to listen to their complaints. 


Jfear of 3iine00 3 1 


There are also plenty of people who deplore 
their indigestion, and at the same time per- 
sist in eating too much and refuse to take more 
exercise. They prefer, perhaps unconsciously, 
indigestion to the exercise of self-control. 
There are also many people who consider them- 
selves bed-ridden, who can walk fast enough if 
they hear that the house is on fire, or that a 
ten-pound note is hanging on the front door 
handle. 

I am sure that extra strength is given us for 
extra emergencies; but there is no need to let 
the sick habit grow because you are afraid of 
getting worse. Face your trouble, whatever it 
is, and you are half-way to overcoming it. 

If you are an invalid, or bed-ridden, what 
of it? You and I are only tools. We are 
meant to be of some use or we should not be 
alive. Just look around and find out for what 
purpose you are alive. If you discover what 
good thing you can bring into the lives of those 
around you, you will gain a great content. 

Do not be afraid of being a burden or even 
talk about it, or you will become one. You 
can radiate cheerfulness and patience as thou- 
sands have done before you. You can carry 


32 Casting out jFear 


the message of love into your corner of the 
world. It is carried in gladness; it is also often 
carried in pain. 

I sometimes think a cripple would brighten 
many a lonely house, whose occupants caper 
around all day and half the night, either for 
pleasure or too many good works, and whose 
tired owner always comes back to empty rooms. 
It is a great thing just to have someone whom 
you are sure of finding at home, and an invalid 
can be the centre of all the sunshine of the 
house. 

Periods of depression and solitude are not 
necessarily an evil. Perhaps, like the bulbs, 
we grow our roots best in the dark. 

Do not go through life in terror of catching 
diseases. If you have clean thoughts and lead 
a clean life, nine chances out of ten you will 
not catch them, and even if you do, you may be 
all the healthier for having had them. They 
may clear your system of some poison that was 
subtly working in it. 

There is far more danger in associating with 
people whose minds are sewers than with 
people who have colds or fevers, because the 
evil thought currents that they generate will 


jFear of lUn 000 33 


penetrate and eat away the joy of real living 
things. 

Many people see too much of those who 
devitalise them, because for some reason or 
other they are afraid to shun their society, and 
they are often mentally and spiritually starved 
and feel ill and depressed in consequence with- 
out knowing the reason why. 

We need health, and we have a right to it. 


VII.— jfeat of 3n$amtp 


There is a great deal of energy squandered 
on the fear of insanity. 

A very brilliant friend of mine killed him- 
self in middle life. His father had done the 
same thing in what was supposed to be tem- 
porary insanity, also his grandmother. Now 
I do not believe for one moment that my friend 
was insane, or his father either. It was the 
fear of becoming insane that made them both 
shoot themselves without waiting to become so. 

It is supposed to be kinder to say and believe 
that a man killed himself because he was insane, 
chiefly because this verdict secures burial in 
consecrated ground. But no good can come out 
of a lie, and the result is to bring discredit on 
a creed that tries, however unthinkingly, to 
fool God to please men. People are much too 
free in using a word which they do not fully 
understand, and so-called insanity is very often 
moral cowardice. It is the fear of pain, worry 
or disgrace, and the fear of becoming insane 


JFear of Unsamtg 35 


that drives many people into killing themselves. 

Now nearly every one at some period of his 
life thinks that he may be going insane, par- 
ticularly after long sleeplessness, or an over- 
whelming grief or remorse. He does not talk 
about his fear, but it is there all the same. 

It is high time that this matter of insanity 
was better understood. 

Everyone knows that as an actual fact either 
the mind controls the body, or the body con- 
trols the mind. Real insanity is a disease of 
the brain: there is no control of the mind and 
reason. There is obsession by some sort of 
fear in an uncontrollable form. 

Insanity is extremely rare, but an unbalanced 
condition is fairly frequent. 

If we concentrate on some great feat of the 
physical body, at the expense of the brain and 
intellect, the brain becomes unbalanced, but we 
do not call this insanity. If we concentrate on 
a great intellectual task at the expense of the 
body, the brain becomes unbalanced, but we 
do not call this insanity, because both are fairly 
common conditions to which we are accustomed. 

But we are apt to look upon anything out of 
the common as insanity, from a runaway mar- 


36 Casting out jFear 


riage with someone out of one’s own class, to 
a murder or a suicide. Why not simply call 
it lack of moral courage, which is really fear 
of public opinion? 

We might as well call anyone ruled by their 
particular fear insane, but so many people are 
thus ruled that we do not dare to. We reserve 
the term for some special uncommon fear, and 
as a result people are much too freely put away 
in asylums by ignorant or unprincipled friends, 
relations and doctors, who might readily be 
cured through love and understanding, being 
thus enabled to cast out their fear and regain 
faith in themselves. 

I knew of a wonderful sanatorium in America 
where people could go who were worn out 
from overwork, worry or ill-health. Their 
brains were unbalanced from any of these vari- 
ous causes, simply because the body gained con- 
trol of the brain instead of the brain controlling 
the body. The wonderfully sympathetic doctor 
and nurses did not humour the patients, but 
made them conscious of the best in them- 
selves, and taught them to help and cure each 
other. This treatment and their simple life, 
with its quiet routine and early hours, effected 


jFeat of Snsamtg 37 


a cure in each and all after a stay of from one 
to twelve months. Ignorant people might have 
called some of these patients insane, but in point 
of fact no insane people were admitted. 

As we learn to understand the working of 
the independent brain, a great deal of what is 
called insanity will practically disappear. 

Again, we call one person original, and an- 
other eccentric, though both are doing precisely 
the same thing, much as we call a poor person 
a thief, and a rich person a kleptomaniac. 

The original person acts without fear; the 
eccentric person in fear, either in fear of not 
being enough observed, or in fear of being 
thought crazy. 

Stand at the street corner, and look at the 
sky for five minutes at the same hour every 
day. If you are afraid of being thought crazy, 
you will collect a crowd and have all the au- 
thorities trying to shut you up. The moment 
you do not mind being thought crazy, and laugh 
at them all, they will feel crazy themselves, and 
disappear. 

If a barmaid behaves like a duchess from the 
fear of not being thought enough of, we call 
her insane and treat her accordingly. But if 


38 Casting out jfear 


a duchess behaves like a barmaid, we say how 
natural and simple she is. She is so sure of 
her position that she is not afraid of what any- 
body thinks. I am not advising these lines of 
conduct, but only drawing attention to them. 

Cast out the fear of insanity. Remember 
that we cannot get crazy if we are not afraid of 
being crazy. 

Do not do crazy things because you think 
the day will come when you will do them any- 
way, or because someone else did. That is just 
the slavery of fear. 

Do not be afraid of doing what you believe 
right, because someone else will think you 
crazy. Remember that most people never 
think, except what you suggest to them to think. 

If your bodily passions have for the moment 
gained control of your brain, do not excuse the 
condition by calling it insanity. There is no 
strength in a lie. These emotions are only 
ephemeral, and can be overcome by love and 
faith and a sense of humour. 

Christ, in the country of the Gadarenes, cast 
the devil out of a man, and the evil spirit en- 
tered a herd of swine that ran away down a 
steep place and fell into the sea. 


Jfear of Snsanitp 39 


Now men — or swine — -possessed by the devil 
of fear, by whatever name we choose to call 
it, are headed for destruction, and can only be 
saved by the power of divine love. 


viii.— jFear of §>leep 


Little children are often afraid of going to 
sleep, as older people are afraid to die. 

Grown-up people often fear sleep lest they 
should miss something. They think they could 
learn more by longer hours of study; gain more 
wealth by harder hours of toil; grab more hap- 
piness by longer hours of pleasure. Yet those 
who rob themselves of sleep cripple their own 
pinions. 

Sleep is not a waste of time : it is a harvester 
of strength. Lack of sleep is a greater source 
of illness than people realise, and continual 
sleeplessness produces not only depression, but 
insanity. 

Sleep is just as necessary to the soul as to 
the body. Statistics prove that no great crimes 
have been committed immediately after wak- 
ing, but only after long hours of wakefulness. 
And we know from experience that judgment 
is clearest, just as remorse is bitterest, directly 
after sleep. 


40 


jFear of §>leep 41 


If we sleep over a difficult question, con- 
fronting our perplexities overnight, but not 
attempting to solve them, we often wake with 
the solution on our lips. We know, too, that 
sometimes on waking in the morning we can 
remember what we had forgotten for days or 
even years. 

Our thoughts, desires or prayers grow to be 
a part of us during sleep, and our intention on 
retiring is on waking transformed into a firm 
purpose or conviction. 

Swedenborg says that every man has two 
memories, the exterior proper to the body, and 
the interior proper to the soul. 

Now, in sleep, the body and the exterior 
memory are at rest, but the soul is free. It 
receives a divine message: it converses with 
other spirits. It gets and imparts ideas which 
are registered in the interior memory. 

What we call intuition or inspiration is really 
a prompting by the interior memory or sub- 
liminal self. The exterior memory needs articu- 
lation and language to express itself. The in- 
terior memory makes us understand in any and 
every language through space, in life, or in 
death. 


42 Casting out JFear 


Elihu said to Job : 

“God is greater than man. Why dost thou 
strive against Him? . . . God speaketh once, 
yea twice, yet man perceiveth it not. In a 
dream, in a vision of the night, when deep sleep 
falleth upon men, in slumberings upon the bed; 
then He openeth the ears of men and sealeth 
their instruction, that He may withdraw man 
from his purpose, and hide pride from man; 
He keepeth back his soul from the pit, and his 
life from perishing by the sword.” 

The deluded people who curtail their nat- 
ural period of sleep by pleasure, stimulants 
or drugs, or who drug themselves to induce an 
artificial and purely material sleep, wake in the 
morning half-starved spiritually. 

They have to think out their problems and 
perplexities with their own finite brains, which 
never carried any man very far. They are 
robbed of their great strength because the inner 
memory is unable to deliver its full message 
from God. 

Let us, therefore, cast out all fear of sleep 
and above all let us teach our children to love 
and understand its use and blessedness. 

They should never be scolded or punished at 


jFeat of §>leep 43 


night. Their little hearts should be free from 
hatred or anger. Their thoughts should be 
peaceful and happy. When preparing for bed 
they should have no bright light or noise to 
inflame the nerves and material senses. They 
should say their prayers at the knees of those 
whom they love best, and be taught that angels 
guard their beds. 

Make them realise the pleasure of beauti- 
ful dreams; and that bad ones are generally 
due to their eating what and when they should 
not. 

And for ourselves, let us remember that a 
sleeping person is spiritually more sensitive 
than a waking one, and that if we pray at our 
children’s bedsides for their strength to over- 
come any faults or temptations, we create a 
thought current that passes into their inner 
memories and vitalises and strengthens their 
souls. 


ix.— jFear of Potoertg 


The pleasures of getting are very small com- 
pared with the pleasures of giving. 

The material miser hoards and pinches. He 
cannot give any pleasure because he is only 
thinking of what he can save by not spending 
on himself or those around him. The mental 
miser will hardly give you the benefit of a 
doubt. He gives out no love and gladness. 
He is afraid to share any joy with his neighbour 
in case it is not enough for two. He is like the 
man who was so mean he would not even give 
his friend the measles when he had them. 

Fear of poverty for body or soul is behind 
them both, and if we allow this fear to possess 
us, we open the door for mean thoughts, failure, 
and terrible loneliness. 

I knew a woman who married at seventeen 
and saved her wedding dress to be buried in. 
Within five years she had grown so fat that if 
she had died, and been arrayed in the dress 
she intended, she would, for modesty’s sake, 
44 


jFear of potiertg 45 


have been obliged to lie face downwards in 
her coffin. Within fifteen years the delicate 
white chiffon dress turned yellow and began 
to rot away in spots. She is still alive, and 
fatter than ever. I think a rag-merchant got 
the dress. 

Some people have a mania for saving for a 
rainy day. I suppose they look on life as one 
long flood, and forget the sun in spying out 
the puddles. Yet the fear of poverty is like 
every other fear. It can be cast out by love 
and a patient effort to understand it. 

Poverty is unintelligent and mostly unneces- 
sary. Its degree is measured by our helpless- 
ness. 

Even if we are poor and have champagne 
tastes with a beer income, what is the matter 
with earning money if we need it? There is 
plenty of money in the world, and we share 
equally the time to earn it in. 

Thousands of people stay poor because they 
think that labour is degrading. Abraham Lin- 
coln was not afraid to chop wood or to tend 
the neighbour’s baby. No labour has the power 
to degrade. 

Fight the fear of poverty with the weapons 


46 Casting out Jfeat 


of competence. We all know women who will 
put up with bad food, become irritable and 
prematurely grey, and perhaps lose their hus- 
bands and children through sheer discomfort 
or illness, instead of spending an hour a day 
for a few months studying domestic science. 

They will refuse to marry the man they love 
because they are afraid of poverty; or they 
will marry for money a man whom otherwise 
they would not touch with the tongs. 

To cook, wash and iron can be as great a 
pleasure as any other work, and to master these 
simple arts robs poverty at once of its greatest 
terrors. 

The people who live in fear of not having 
everything just like their neighbours are always 
poor, and so are the people who do not pay 
their bills. No matter how well they dress 
or run their houses, they diffuse poverty. You 
feel they are poor, and are only depressed by 
their elegance. 

Pretentiousness is the tragedy of small 
incomes. 

Yet in contrast to this, hundreds of small 
homes are happy, cheery and attractive because 


jFear of Potiertg 47 


a capable mother, in her love of her home, has 
mastered its management. 

With a more sensible attitude towards honest 
toil, I believe we could envy comparative pov- 
erty as we now do comparative wealth. 

Cast out all fear of poverty. You can make 
money, or you can live on what you have, and 
be happy. 

Be ready to share what you have got. Mean, 
stingy thoughts keep you poor. Have generous 
ones. 

Do not sponge on rich friends and relations, 
and become a social beggar. 

Poverty is often a blessing in disguise, and 
the monster can be house-broken when recog- 
nised and understood. 

Then let us think of a better name. 


x.— 4Fear of public ©pinion 


What we think of ourselves is much more im- 
portant than what anyone else thinks of us. 
Yet fear of public opinion has caused most of 
the sin and suffering in the world. 

It is the fear of public opinion that makes 
the moral coward. 

The average child is unwisely taught not 
to cry for fear of what So-and-So will think of 
him, and, as a boy at school, is afraid to kiss 
his mother before his fellows, and afraid not 
to listen to filthy stories. 

The young man begins drinking because he 
is afraid to be thought a prig. He becomes a 
drunkard and then a liar through the fear of 
being found out, and the nation turns good food 
into poison for his benefit. 

The girl educated in fear yields her lips to 
her admirer for fear of being thought a prude; 
and from this beginning the women’s hospitals 
in our large cities are crowded. 

The weak, selfish man bullies his wife be- 
48 


JFeat of Pu&Uc ©pinion 49 


cause he is afraid the world will not realise 
that he is boss. Yet she would be far more 
likely to love the man who kicks and beats 
her without caring a d for public opinion. 

People give thousands of pounds or pennies 
to charities mostly because they are afraid not 
to. They put half a crown in the plate at church 
and sixpence in the bag. Yet money given in 
fear of public opinion can do no good at all 
to anyone, any more than money gained dis- 
honestly can bring happiness. 

Thoughts are the real power of life, and it 
is the motive that counts in what we do. People 
who are good because they are afraid to be 
bad have no moral strength, and they radiate 
neither strength nor warmth. They are moral 
ghosts. 

Now the fear of public opinion is as un- 
necessary as any other fear. 

What is public opinion? Most people do 
not think at all, anyway, or if they do, think 
only what they are told to think. 

The man who has cast out all fear, and has 
faith in himself, creates public opinion. The 
more we can have like him the better. 


50 Casting out jFeat 


If we say what we believe, and do what we 
say, the world is in our hands. 

“Hitch your chariot to a star.” You may 
not be spared the jolts, but the direction is 
sure to be right. 


xi.^jFears Cftat &o toitft mt altf) 
anD COotlDlp position 


The fears that go with wealth and worldly 
position are simply a form of the fear of pub- 
lic opinion. 

To a certain type of brain, a great gentleman 
is one who is unable to shave himself; and a 
great lady one who lives exactly as her servants 
think she ought to. This standard should not 
be encouraged. 

Only the really great man dares be very 
simple. He does not try to make you feel a 
fool for the sake of augmenting his own clever- 
ness. He does not need to trample on anyone 
to boost himself up. He can afford to be nice 
to you because he is secure. 

But the small man in the high place needs 
a great deal of bolstering up in the shape of 
pomp and ceremony. He has crawled up on 
to his pinnacle of fame by treading on his 
friends or kicking them aside, and he rocks 
there unsteadily with fear clutching him by the 
scruff of the neck. 


5 2 Casting out JFeat 


He mistakes position, which is material, for 
influence, which is a spiritual power. Expedi- 
ence instead of principle is his motto, and fear 
his only master, and he spends most of his life 
complaining that he is not properly appreciated. 
He is a small, unreal and ephemeral thing, be- 
cause his fear destroys his moral strength, and 
neither press comments, nor a big funeral, nor 
a lying epitaph, can increase his ultimate value. 

The big man, however, has wisdom where 
the small man has only wits. He does not 
worry about impressing the world with his im- 
portance, because no matter what creed he 
professes he realises in his heart that he is 
only a tool, to be used by God for the service 
of the world. 

How much better it is to be too big for a 
small position than too small for a big one. 

There is also a certain worldly position that 
goes with great wealth. 

The fear of gaining money is as scarce as 
the love of losing it; but many rich people have 
a real fear of not getting credit for their wealth. 

I have known women break down in health 
because they changed their clothes so many 
times a day. They tired themselves right out, 


JFearg Cftat &o toitb SSQealtf) 53 


and fatigue and mental starvation made them 
anything but cheerful companions. 

The social climbers only indulge in smart 
acquaintances. If you go to a ball where there 
are no frumps, you can be sure that the people 
who give it are just struggling into society, and 
are afraid to ask any but the ultra fashionable. 

I knew a comparatively poor American girl 
who married a young millionaire, and her one 
idea of keeping her husband faithful to her 
was to polish her finger-nails and wear entire 
lace underclothes, which were irritating both 
to her skin and her temper. She soaked in two 
hot baths a day, reeking with the most expen- 
sive bath salts. She built a larger house than 
any of her neighbours had, and she filled the 
new house, which looked like an asylum, with 
new friends, being particularly rude to her hus- 
band’s common and real ones. 

The upshot of it was that her husband soon 
preferred his typist, who cooked a supper for 
him on the gas-stove in her bed-sitting room, 
and fed him under a student’s lamp, with the 
cat and the dog and the parrot. 

How few people with lots of money are 
either healthy or happy. They get selfish, con- 


54 Casting out jFear 


descending or purse-proud, or they make them- 
selves ridiculous by trying to impress the world 
with their importance. 

As someone once remarked: “You can see 
how little the Lord thinks of money when you 
see the kind of people He gives it to.” 

Now the real power of money lies not in the 
money itself, but in the thought it represents, 
just as man’s real nourishment comes from the 
sun, and the food we eat is only a medium. 

Wealth honestly gained and sensibly used 
is a power and a blessing, but how seldom this 
is. 

In some way or another we have to pay for 
everything we get in this world; and the toll 
exacted for wealth is only too often a great 
fear that gobbles up the joy of it, or a swarm 
of social leeches. 


XII.— jFear of Servant# 


You can never forget a dog has fleas when he 
scratches himself constantly. 

Some people never let you forget they have 
servants. They parade them at the front door, 
and seize every opportunity for showing them 
off; and all the time you can tell by their voice, 
manner and expression in speaking to them, 
that they are really terribly afraid of them. 

They are afraid the servants will not be suffi- 
ciently impressed with their superiority and 
power; afraid they will realise how dependent 
their employers are on them; they are even 
afraid of getting fond of them. It would be so 
undignified. 

I knew a woman who, in spite of her chronic 
catarrh, discarded her usual unromantically 
warm dressing-gown for a low-necked and 
short-sleeved creation in satin and chiffon, in 
fear of her new luxury disguised as a French 
maid. 

And another acquaintance, whose maid in- 


56 Casting out Jfear 


sisted on her having a specially elaborate set of 
underclothes whenever she travelled, for fear of 
a railway accident, and the intimacy of identi- 
fication. It was the same maid who carried a 
special nightgown for her mistress’s constant 
visits to smart house-parties. It was never used, 
but it was laid out for the purpose of impressing 
the other maids when they investigated the 
ladies’ rooms. 

And there are plenty of people who only 
dress for dinner to impress the butler, foot- 
man, parlourmaid, or general. 

The result of this fear is that we usually run 
our houses just as the servants want us to run 
them. They give us the outward respect we 
demand; but they do not trust us any more than 
we trust them, and the chances are that they 
take from us what they think we unlawfully 
hold from them, and call it by another name, 
like the nigger that stole chickens first from 
instinct and then from habit. 

Suppose you have a good cook. You are 
afraid to find fault with anything in case she 
might leave you. You are afraid of her be- 
cause you know nothing about cooking yourself. 

If you can only afford a bad 'cook, you ac- 


JFear of ^ettmnt0 57 


cept the food like a martyr, instead of putting 
some energy into learning domestic economy, 
so as to be able to teach or replace her. You 
are afraid she might resent it, and would sooner 
have your household poisoned than let the cook 
suspect you are not a real lady. You console 
yourself by thinking how economical she is 
because she starves the servants. 

You suspect she occasionally carries food 
home to her relations, but you overlook it for 
fear she should ask for less ridiculously small 
wages. 

Your cook tells you that the kitchen range 
eats coal, and as you have no idea whether a 
range eats, sucks or chews coal, at the rate of 
two or ten scuttles a day, you skimp coals up- 
stairs, and incidentally put temptation in an 
underpaid servant’s way. 

If she sells the fat and throws away the 
bones, instead of making soup, you really do 
not know. You are afraid to inquire. 

What sort of a house do you expect to run 
on fear? 

If you understood labour yourself, and were 
really honest, you would be ashamed to with- 
hold from your servants what they honestly 


58 Casting out JFeat 


earned. What thanks does the servant get who 
saves her mistress from £10 to £40 a year? 

Now to be perfectly fair, we really owe a 
great deal to faithful servants, and there are 
thousands of them in the world. 

The children of the upper classes, except for 
their actual birth, frequently owe nearly every- 
thing to the love and devotion of their nurses — 
their health, their morals, and their love. 

Children of the middle and lower classes are 
more fortunate, because they are more often 
with their parents, and the personal love and 
companionship give them a wonderful start in 
life. 

The upper classes have not yet realised the 
advantages of this, and we sometimes see a 
mother jealous of her child’s love for its nurse, 
instead of being grateful that some human being 
has taught the child the greatest lesson and 
strength in life: to love. She herself does not 
understand the health or sickness or care of 
children, and she has no great love to help her, 
but she suddenly feels helpless and afraid, and 
in desperation she will sometimes change the 
nurse, hoping that the child will love her more 
if it has a nurse it loves less. 


JFear of ^ertoama 59 


Poor ignorant woman! Love is boundless, 
and the more you love, the more you can love. 
The child’s love of even a dog, a bird, a rabbit 
or a doll, helps to develop a real live man or 
woman: 

Down in de pens, even old hens 
Cuddles dey babies motherless friends — 

Learn to love something each day more: 

Lord ! What else are we living for ? 

Occasionally our servants are hostile to us. 
They are our enemies and they must be met as 
such. Do not attempt to conciliate them through 
fear. Either dismiss them at once, or use the 
weapons of understanding and love. 

A really disagreeable or dishonest servant is 
worse than a leper in the house. 

The war is teaching us to appreciate labour 
as we never did before, because all classes have 
joined hands to do their utmost to win. 

To-day all real useful people belong to the 
labouring classes, in whatever rank they were 
born, and those who cannot work just do not 
count. The world is learning to understand 
labour at last, and love of it is casting out fear. 


xiii. — jfeat of ©nenueg 


Nobody has any power to hurt us but our- 
selves, and most of us are our own worst 
enemies. 

Some people are so afraid of making enemies 
that they hardly screw up courage to make a 
friend. 

You and I know people who never say an 
unkind word about anyone, though they some- 
times look ready to bite. They are probably 
social climbers, and hope to get more worldly 
advantages and land themselves safe in society. 
These people never really radiate love or kind- 
ness, because their motive is the negative one 
of expediency rather than the positive one of 
principle or sincerity. 

By casting out the fear of making enemies 
we often make two friends instead of one, 
just as by casting out the fear of losing a friend 
we strengthen our friendship. 

What of the enemies we already have? We 
sometimes fear they can hurt us, and try to get 
60 


jFear of (Enemies 6 1 


in a blow at them first. We might as well fight 
the shadow on the wall by beating our head 
against it. 

It is as futile to pursue an enemy as it is to 
pursue happiness, and as wrong. If we do not 
deserve abuse it is powerless to hurt us, and 
in any case it is sure to re-act on the abuser. 

Take the first steps towards casting out fear 
of your enemies by considering the cause of 
their enmity. It may be something wrong in 
you or something wrong in them. Probably 
it is something wrong in both, but look upon 
them as possible friends when mutual misunder- 
standings are cleared up, and as educators, 
striving to avoid in ourselves what we dislike 
in them. 

We shall soon learn how much we owe them 
and learn to love them. 


XIV.— Jfear of max 


When the great Italian tragedienne, Duse, 
was asked by her little daughter what life was, 
she is said to have answered: “Life, my child, 
is only a test of courage.” 

This is very true, and those who fear war 
fear life, and do not understand it. For all 
life, from the cradle to the grave, is a material 
war for a spiritual peace, war on our passions, 
our egoism, vanity and selfishness. All un- 
happiness and ill-health in life come from not 
fighting our weaknesses in some form or an- 
other. 

The peace that comes because we fear war 
is no real peace. It is cowardice. Peace comes 
after conquest. 

A war of aggression is wrong, and we should 
only tolerate war when made for the sake or 
love of peace. 

When war is necessary, only good comes of 
it. The moment it. is not necessary, harm comes 
from it, materially and spiritually. 

62 


Jfear of mat 63 


This is as true for the nation as for the 
individual. 

Unless we cast out all fear we can never con- 
quer, and unless we conquer we can never have 
a lasting peace. 


xv.— jfear of peace 


The fear of peace and of the problems of peace 
often prolong wars and family feuds long after 
their original causes have been forgotten. 

Quarrels of any* sort, whether between na- 
tions or individuals, arise out of misunder- 
standing, and just as a sharp thunderstorm 
clears the air, they have their use if they do 
not last too long. 

A criminal is at war with society. A short 
time in prison usually does him good. Leave 
him there too long and he becomes hardened, 
and plans further crime. 

War can do the world good. It transfigures 
ordinary mortals into heroes and heroines. It 
awakens a thought current of self-sacrifice and 
self-control, of facing one’s God, inspired by 
a high ideal. 

But there is such a thing as fighting too long 
and getting so drunk with blood that our vision 
of the ideal we were fighting for becomes 
blurred or blotted out. 

64 


Jfear of peace 65 


Now a war may arise from various causes: 
from wanting to grab something you have no 
right to; from a fear of peace, or a struggle 
for freedom. 

If the cause is a legitimate one, we desire 
conquest only for the sake of peace, and then 
surely we must reach out and accept a just and 
lasting peace without fear the moment we feel 
it is possible. We must use reason, justice and 
understanding in dealing with a nation as with 
an individual. Such a peace cannot fail to 
be a strong one. 

But we have no right to expect the enemy 
to be just to us if we will not be just to them. 
We cannot say one thing and do another. 
There is no strength in that; neither can it 
result in a real peace. 

All the armies in the world cannot bring 
about a lasting peace based on unfair dealings 
and false diplomacy. 

Nor is there any strength in a war started 
or prolonged through fear of peace, any more 
than there is strength in a peace made in fear 
of war. 

When the fear of peace is made commander- 
in-chief, our transfigured heroes degenerate 


66 Casting out JFear 


into animals inflamed with hate, mad with blood 
and fury. 

Expediency takes the place of principle, and 
Christianity is mocked by a sham patriotism. 

Conquest does not necessarily mean peace, 
any more than it implies war or war conquest. 
We can conquer most surely as individuals or 
nations through the power of our love and 
understanding. 


XVI.— jFear of KtOicuie 


The fear of ridicule is the devil’s trump card. 

How many happy friendships have been 
broken up through teasing. 

A man is sometimes afraid to ask the woman 
he loves to marry him, because he is afraid 
either that she will laugh at him or that his 
friends will laugh because he has not made a 
better choice. And in middle life he wonders 
people are not happier, and decides it is really 
a question of liver. 

Other men have been laughed into ruining 
a woman’s life. 

“Tell me what you laugh at and I’ll tell you 
what you are.” 

Lots of people enjoy laughing at others who 
live in constant fear of others laughing at them ; 
but to have no fear of ridicule, we must be able 
to enjoy a joke on ourselves, as well as any- 
one else. 

To have no fear of ridicule is the strongest 
armour we can buckle on, and as soon as a man 
67 


68 Casting out JFear 


does not mind being laughed at nobody wants 
to laugh at him. 

Goodness and morals are so often held up 
to ridicule that people do not always recognise 
that the degree of virtue depends entirely on 
the motive that prompts it. 

We all know the flat-chested dyspeptic young 
curate who is the butt of the music-hall stage. 
He is not ridiculous because he is good, but 
because he is typical of the man who is only 
virtuous from fear or ill-health, and not from 
love of his fellow-creatures. What good can 
a parson do the world who has only chosen his 
vocation because he was afraid he had not 
brains enough for anything else? 

There is no religion in mere form, whatever 
form or strength there is in religion. 

Nobody is so modest as the woman who is 
badly made. But this is not a modesty she need 
be proud of. No one is so virtuous as the unat- 
tractive, but there is no strength in their virtue. 

The goodness of the moral coward is always 
a joke. The saint is respected by all. 

When we cast out all fear of the ridicule of 
goodness, we can be sure that no man or 
woman will be the worse for our having lived. 


XVII.— jFear of Kesponsfiulitg 


The fear of responsibility keeps most of us 
mediocre. 

We constantly hear people say: “Oh, I 
couldn’t undertake this or that — it’s too much 
responsibility. I haven’t enough training or 
experience or brains.” 

This is sheer lack of faith. If God sends us 
opportunities, He sends us strength to make 
use of them. 

It is no use sitting at the bottom of a ladder 
and wishing we were at the top, or expecting 
anyone to push us up. We must climb alone. 

There are also a great many people who are 
afraid of the responsibility of making up their 
own minds, and they ask advice because they 
want to be able to blame somebody else for 
their mistakes. Consult with whom you like, 
but never let anybody but yourself make up 
your own mind. 

Do not be afraid to burn your boats behind 
you. Cast out the fear of responsibility, or 
69 


70 Casting out jfear 


you are making a collar and chain for the devil 
to lead you by. 

The power to succeed will be yours in pro- 
portion to your desire. We are what we love, 
and can be what we want to be. You cannot 
want to be good and be bad; or want to be bad 
and be good. 

“Low aim, not failure, is a crime.” 

No responsibility weighs so heavily after 
we have prayed and slept over it. 


xviil— jFear of Consequences 


How many people cripple their own enterprise 
for fear of the consequences. You will hear 
them say: 

“I wanted to start in business for myself, 
but I was afraid of risking my capital.” 

“I wanted to leave my husband as I knew 
his influence was bad on my children, but I 
was afraid I should lose my social position if 
I did.” 

“I wanted to earn my own living, but I was 
afraid of what people would say.” 

They do not seem to realise that the con- 
sequences of their not doing what they think 
right, or even advisable for their worldly pros- 
perity, may be much more terrible than if they 
had made the plunge. 

Consequences, of one sort or another, are 
always with us and cannot be ignored. 

There are very few people who will take 
any stand in life, and say: 

“Yes, I said or did that, because I believe 
71 


72 Casting out JFear 


it is right, and I am ready to accept the con- 
sequences.” 

Yet whoever can say it honestly is encircled 
at once with a vital thought current of truth 
that is better than chain armour. The person 
who compromises, states half-truths, and 
timidly creeps about the world trying to con- 
vince the public of some idea which he only 
partially believes himself, has no positive 
thought current, only a negative vacuum for 
conflicting ideas to enter. 

To fear consequences is to fear the future 
and to doubt God’s love. 


xix.— jFeat of Jfailure 


The fear of failure keeps most people from 
achieving anything really worth while. It saps 
all their energy and punctures their ideals. 

The negative flag is hoisted and the positive 
flag hauled down. 

Now let us look the question of failure 
squarely in the face. 

Suppose we do fail. “Low aim, not failure, 
is a crime.” A real failure is better than a 
sham success. And a real failure is often the 
firmest foundation for a real success. 

How many men have failed in business, 
literature or art, and then made a great success? 
They loved their work and simply could not 
give it up, and having sense enough to know it 
was no good, they went on striving until it 
became good. 

In playing golf you must keep your eye on 
the ball to be a good player. If you take your 
eye off the ball, and look all round the course, 
at a stream here and a thicket there, and won- 


74 Casting out jFeac 


der how you will ever find the ball again if it 
gets lost in a long shot, you are no good as a 
player and never will be. 

Now it is just the same with the game of 
life. There is no such thing as chance or luck. 

The laws of the spiritual world are just as 
certain as the laws of the natural world, and 
two and two make four in both. 

It may be true that if you fail in one thing 
you will be better at another, but do not be 
on the look-out for failure. 

Bizet, the composer, killed himself because 
Carmen was not an immediate success. Triumph 
does not always come with a flourish of trum- 
pets like a circus to a country town. 

There is also the person who fears failure 
and refuses to recognise it when it faces him. 

He dwells in the high society of mediocrity, 
and is much to be pitied. He hugs his artistic 
temperament, and makes it an excuse for a 
selfish life, long hair and degenerate friends, 
and blames the world for not admiring him 
more. He knows nothing of the agony of real 
genius in travail, or of the terrible depression 
of unfulfilled ambitions, because he will not 
face the truth. His conceit stunts his normal 


jFear of failure 75 


growth, and if he knows nothing of great de- 
pression, neither does he know the ecstasy of 
success. 

Genius is the link between earth and heaven, 
and the fire of genius burns up the fear of 
failure. Genius conquers all around it, whether 
it is the genius of art, or the genius of char- 
acter, which is the victorious attitude toward 
life. 

Now do not let the monster, fear, grab you 
at the base of the brain, and make you dis- 
gorge the opportunity right in your mouth. 

Make no mistake about it. God gives every 
one of us opportunities every day of our lives, 
and with the opportunity the freewill to accept 
it or refuse. 

Cast out all fear. You cannot fail. 


xx.— jfear of Dn flDtott CJ)oug6t0 


How many people there are who hate to be 
left alone for fear of their own thoughts. 

Now thought is at once the language and 
the food of the soul. “As a man thinketh in 
his heart, so is he.” 

It is a waste of energy to say pleasant things 
to anyone while you are thinking disagreeable 
ones. 

The statesmen who make secret treaties and 
try to fool their countries can only expect chaos. 
Men who think one thing, do another, and be- 
lieve nothing, may have careers of meteoric 
brilliance, but they will soon be swallowed up 
in the night of their own hypocrisy. 

Thought currents are stronger than material 
action. Every brain and spirit radiate thought 
currents that travel on through space and 
eternity. 

Our thoughts are real live things that go out 
from us and create an atmosphere. They 
permeate our clothes and our houses. 

76 


JFear of ©ne’$ ©ton C&ougftw 77 


You like to wear the clothes you had a good 
time in. You associate a chair, a desk or a 
book with some loved one who has passed 
away, and when you look at it you are con- 
scious of their thoughts still living in it. In 
some houses we feel only gladness; in others, 
vice seems ground into the very walls. 

Oh, the dreariness of certain rooms, full of 
velvets, tapestries and objets d’ art , where evil 
thoughts and dirty joyless minds have per- 
meated the atmosphere ! 

We are all sensitive to the atmosphere 
created by thought. 

How much more intelligent we all appear 
with the people who think us intelligent. We 
are happier with the people who are glad to 
see us. 

A critical hostess, who thinks of her guests 
as merely a tiresome duty, or as bores, does 
not contribute to the cheerfulness of her party. 

Some of us are more sensitive than others 
to this mental atmosphere, and often know 
what people are thinking without the medium 
of language — but mercifully, not always. Be- 
fore, in the process of evolution, we learn to 
discard the spoken language altogether, let us 


78 Casting out jFear 


hope that people will be more careful what 
they think about than they are at present. 

When a person is within our range, we can 
box his ears or stroke his hair. We can also 
sit in silence by a friend or a stranger and 
radiate a cheerful thought current or a depress- 
ing one. As yet this is very little understood. 

Now we should be able to control our 
thoughts just as we control our arms and legs 
unless the brain is paralysed. We should be 
able to put them aside like clothes for which 
we have no immediate use. 

Do not give any storage room to fear. It 
opens the door for hatred, envy and many 
other undesirable tenants. They are destruc- 
tive. Cast them out. If you let them all in, 
no wonder you are afraid of your own thoughts. 

If we flee from our thoughts, they pursue 
us, and become a nightmare. If we face them, 
whatever they are, we develop the strength of 
purpose that governs our actions. 

We are careful to eat what nourishes the 
body. Should we not be equally careful to 
think what nourishes the soul? 

Dyspepsia may give us unpleasant thoughts, 
but unpleasant thoughts may also give us dys- 


JFeat of 2Dne’0 ©ton C&ougfcts 79 


pepsia, and ill-digested thoughts may give us 
a sort of mental dyspepsia. 

Learn to understand and love your thoughts. 
Do not be afraid to think, any more than you 
are afraid to grow. 

Do not be afraid of depression. It may be 
due only to mental growing pains. Depres- 
sion is generally only another name for soul- 
hunger. Never try to numb it with drugs or 
stimulants. 

Feed your soul with clean, uplifting thoughts, 
and take what nature allows in the way of fresh 
air and sleep. A good night’s rest is a great 
cure for depression. Face your depression or 
your indecision without fear, and go to bed 
with the honest desire for God’s help. You 
will wake in the morning feeling spiritually 
nourished, calmer, happier and better balanced. 

Perhaps you are haunted by remorse for 
something you have done. Try to undo it. If 
it cannot be undone, make what amends you 
can. Spend no energy on remorse, only on 
progress. Look on your mis-spent moments as 
fertilisers, and give them a decent burial. 

Then tear out the weeds from this wonder- 
ful garden of thought, and make it beautiful 


8o Casting out jFear 


and clean. Remember that each thought bears 
flowers and fruit that go out into the weary- 
world with a message. 

Even the refuse is of use if you understand 
that it really is refuse. Make it fertilise your 
garden. Do not waste time in regret that there 
is so much of it. Food and flowers can grow 
through the manure heap. Even if it has to 
be burnt, remember the value of the ashes. 


xxl— jfeat of Crutfe 


The liar is always a negative person. He or 
she has various hallmarks and is easily recog- 
nised. They seldom give offence; they have a 
vacant look in their eyes, and either a slippery 
handshake, or one so hearty that you want to 
kick them. They seldom believe anything they 
hear, and they have no faith in human nature 
because they know human nature would be 
mighty silly to trust the like of them. 

There is an atmosphere about a group of 
liars, such as one feels in jails, and no luxurious 
drawing-room can disguise it. Liars lose their 
instinct for truth, just as we should lose the 
use of our arms and legs if we did not con- 
stantly exercise them. 

The motives of the liar are varied. Some- 
times he lies because he is kindly and afraid to 
hurt one’s feelings, and sometimes because he 
is cruel and wants to get others blamed for his 
mistakes; sometimes he lies from expediency; 
often to increase his self-importance and be- 


82 Casting out jFeat 


cause he likes to be thought in the know of 
startling things and to get himself asked about. 

Whatever the motive, however, every lie 
arises out of fear of the truth. 

And the actual falsehood may not matter so 
much as our allowing the monster, fear, to 
guide us and to gain control of our entire will- 
power. 

Fear of the truth turns us into creatures that 
simply do not count for more than a very short 
time; and lying is a particularly contagious 
complaint too. This is why so many people’s 
brilliant careers are as ephemeral as the shad- 
fly. They get puffed up with their own impor- 
tance, and forget that truth is the only accurate 
standard of proportion. 

They build their temples of fame on shifting 
sand, and in their egoism forget to reckon with 
the winds of heaven. No man has any say in 
the control of the elements, but every one is 
free to choose his own foundations, and his 
building will only endure if founded on the rock 
of truth. 

This is the rock on which real Christianity 
is built. 

The churches grow emptier instead of fuller 


jFear of Crutf) 83 


simply because some clergymen do not live up 
to what they preach or demand of their con- 
gregations. 

The whole strength of a man is in what he 
is, and he is what he believes and believes what 
he loves. 

Truth is a positive force. The man who be- 
lieves in what he says or does — whether you 
and I agree with him or not — has the world in 
his hand, and will always, in the long run, mas- 
ter the people who follow expediency or the 
line of least resistance. 

I wondered for a time why truth was so all- 
important, and then I came upon this passage, 
which I should like to quote here. It relates 
my father’s, John Bigelow’s, vision of truth in 
a dream. 

“The human mind can conceive of no time 
when 2 + 2 began to be 4 or will cease to be 4. 
It never could have been, nor can it ever be 
otherwise. 

“God is infinite truth. The above result is 
necessarily a part of God, because it is a neces- 
sary part of infinite truth. To suppose a power 
of denying that 2 -f- 2 make 4 is to suppose a 


84 Casting out JFear 


power of denying all truth, which is not sup- 
posable. 

“In other words,” he adds, “God is a state 
or Composition of all the qualities necessary 
to perfection, and which, like a mathematical 
axiom, never could be more or less at any 
time.” 

It is impossible for fear and truth to dwell 
together, for the windows of truth let in the 
light and sunshine of God’s love, and perfect 
love casteth out all fear. 


XXII.— jfear of ©Id age 


We grow older from fear of old age faster 
than from advancing years. 

Terror will not keep us young, however. We 
have all seen the sunken dull eyes of women 
with painted rosy cheeks. I am all for art — 
when it really does help beauty, but no art will 
preserve youth as well as young thoughts can. 

The ideal of youth or youthfulness is not 
an undeveloped state, but of life at its fullest. 
This is the true immortality of youth, and 
eternal youth lives in faith, love and kindness. 

The most unattractive old person is the one 
with an overfed body and a starved soul. 

Now age in itself is not ugly. Some women 
never have any beauty at all until they have 
turned forty. It is the dreary sour face of 
which people say: “How she has aged.” 

This horrible sordid look which some older 
people get is spiritual death, because it reflects 
all the sordid material aspects of the flesh, 
which are not immortal*, which die, like all evil 
85 


86 Casting out jFeat 


things, because they are not real or true. 

Then of others we say: “How young they 
seem,” because they have a real zest for life, 
and radiate thought currents of happiness and 
love. A sham youthfulness is not worth much, 
but the feeling of youth is glorious, and can 
be cherished indefinitely. 

Some people, parents especially, while they 
are afraid of old age, are also afraid of their 
own youthfulness. They suppress it, because 
they think they will be more dignified and com- 
mand greater respect. Now you cannot make 
your children respect you unless you are worthy 
of respect. Most children respect their parents 
more than they deserve, anyway. 

Do not be afraid of being young with them. 
Do not pretend you never did wrong, because 
you know it is a lie, and there is no strength 
in lies. 

Let them feel that just as you and I have 
conquered after failures, so can they. “They 
can all become what we might have been.” 
Remember that if you suppress your own 
youth, you may suppress theirs, too. 

There are plenty of compensations in grow- 
ing older. If you are a woman, it is even some 


JFear of 2DID 3se 


87 


compensation to be no longer followed in the 
street ! 

Most people would dread old age less if they 
understood how the youthfulness of the body 
really may be preserved, not so much by the 
use of cosmetics and poisonous hair-dyes, but 
by the understanding and generous use of such 
simple elementary things as sunshine, air, water 
and a great deal of sleep. 

Every animal likes a sun-bath. It not only 
makes him feel well, but happy. 

If we could let our naked bodies bask in the 
sunshine occasionally, we should all feel 
younger and better for it. We cannot walk 
about the streets naked, but we might have 
places open to the sky in the country, or on our 
roofs in cities, with a screen in case of air-raids ! 

The sun not only kills germs, but it is the 
material warmth of Divine love, and the actual 
nourishment of the body. The food we eat is 
only its medium. Nikola Tesla, the great 
scientist, claims that as human nature develops, 
we shall be able to draw our nourishment di- 
rect from the sun, without the medium of food 
at all. The psychic influence of light deserves 
a volume to itself. 


88 Casting out jFeat 


Every child loves to paddle in the rain till 
it is taught to fear it, grouse about it, and 
even forget its use. 

Children love running about barefoot on the 
dewy grass till they are told that they will catch 
cold, or spread their feet; and if this does not 
discourage them, they are made to believe that 
they are too old. 

Why anyone should ever be too old to do 
anything that makes him feel happier or better, 
nobody is able to explain. 

We seem just to be educated into getting 
old, and we should revolt from this tyranny. 

Sleep is not only a great beautifier and nerve 
balm, but it brings us into touch with another 
world, the world of immortal youth, through 
our subconscious selves. 

After a long, natural, undrugged sleep, we 
wake with a happiness that is positively con- 
tagious. 

Cast out all fear of ever being a care to any- 
one when you get old. It is in your own hands 
and your own heart, whether rich or poor, sick 
or well, to be a burden or a blessing — and the 
secret of your power is Love. 


XXIII.— jfear of Deatij 


I have wondered why I did not recognise all 
my blessings when they came to me, because 
they sometimes masqueraded as sorrows and 
disappointments. 

I have wondered why I was once afraid of 
growing old when now I love it. 

I have wondered why I ever felt a fear of 
death when now I understand how little it 
separates those we love from us, how great is 
the influence of the dead, and what an im- 
portant part death plays in life and in all nature. 

I see the earth covered with dead leaves, the 
trees bare and the once beautiful gardens 
colourless. The sun only slants gently upon 
the earth, and we call this winter. The fields 
are strewn with manure and ill-smelling chemi- 
cals to enrich the ground for cultivation in the 
spring. 

The rubbish heaps stare at us with their ac- 
89 


90 Casting out JFeat 


cumulation of waste and decay. But all is of 
use. 

Then comes the spring with its biting winds, 
thaws and floods; and the warm sun brings the 
sap back into the trees. The vegetables, fruits 
and flowers grow, and the insects creep out of 
the earth, called by the sun. 

Do not fear the winds and rains that beat 
upon the weary earth. Remember they shake 
the sap into the trees. 

The sun — and love and understanding — 
bring life out of all this seeming death. 

Remorse is only a guide post which we pass 
on the road of life, to remind us to choose our 
destination. It should not be used as a resting 
place. 

Let us rid ourselves of the thought currents 
that fill our streets with live bodies and dead 
souls, millions of starved spirits wandering 
aimlessly over the earth, haunted by their 
respective fears. 

These are the real dead. 


Let us cast out all Fear. 

Let the sun in at our windows. 
Let the sun into our souls. 







































































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